America - The Band

[SteveSly]

I wanna get lost in their rock and roll and drift away...

Different band.

[SteveSly]

I'm probably the only person in the world who heard them first through their early 80's hit You Can Do Magic (written by, I believe, Russ "Since You've Been Gone" Ballard). I actually remember seeing the video on HBO's old Video Jukebox (I'm pretty sure that's another one that was too "soft" for MTV). Then when VH-1 Classic first started, they were playing it regularly. Then for awhile, I heard that song played regularly on the Muzak at work.

Trivia: the cover of America's Greatest Hits was designed by Phil Hartman, one of the few people on Saturday Night Live who were actually funny after the original Not Ready For Prime Time Players left the show. At the time he was a graphic designer, and as I understand, his brother was manager to America, Poco, and a few other bands, and so the brother hired Phil to do album covers for them.

Yes, that Hartman story is true. Hartman did several album covers for America as well as Poco including the iconic "Legend" album cover. Hartman also designed Steely Dan's "Aja" album cover as well.

[pb2015]

2 of the 3 original members are left.

Dan Peek left the band in 1977. He died a few years ago. The other two principal members, Gerry Beckley and Dewey Bunnell, are still there.

[Rune Blackwings]

Yes, that Hartman story is true. Hartman did several album covers for America as well as Poco including the iconic "Legend" album cover. Hartman also designed Steely Dan's "Aja" album cover as well.

sad story with Hartman. I liked that Poco cover.

[Rune Blackwings]

Seals & Crofts did get proggy on some of their album cuts. ED&JFC seemed sappy to me from their hits, but I haven't heard much of them.

England Dan, aka Dan Seals, was brother to Jim Seals of Seals & Crofts. He went solo for a time before dying a few years ago. I think ED & JFC did a Todd Rundgren song that became a huge hit for them.

[JJ88]

^'Love Is The Answer'. 'I'd Really Love To See You Tonight' is the most (in)famous of their hits, some very 'of their time' lyrics on that.

Different band.

Not a band but Dobie Gray (best known here in the UK for his singles that were big on the 'Northern Soul' scene).

[saucyjackstl]

[saucyjackstl]

They are so much more than Sister Golden Hair, Horse with No Name and Tin Man

[Vic2012]

Never cared much for them but their hits are nice and pleasant. I always thought We Can Do Magic was CSN or some other configuration because one of the backup voices sounds like Graham Nash to my ears.

[arturs]

Thanks to this thread I've been on an America kick this afternoon. I found this gem of a live concert performance on YT:



They actually play a mellotron 29 minutes in. I shit you not...

[Jerjo]

Back in the day, it was always a good idea for a young man to have a copy of America's greatest hits LP in their collection in the dorm room (or James Taylor, Seals & Crofts, Dan Fogelberg...). For you know, entertaining female guests.

[GuitarGeek]

England Dan, aka Dan Seals, was brother to Jim Seals of Seals & Crofts. He went solo for a time before dying a few years ago.

He also had a successful "today's country" music career in the 80's. My dad used to keep the car radio on WGAR, the local country station, and I remember one time we were out on the radio for whatever reason, and whatever the country music version of America's Top 40 (I don't even remember what it was called) was on, and I remember the host saying something to the effect that Dan Seals was a bit embarrassed by some of the stuff he did with John Ford Coley, though I don't know why, because listening to both things now, it sounds like six of one, half a dozen of the other to me.

[GuitarGeek]

^'Love Is The Answer'. 'I'd Really Love To See You Tonight' is the most (in)famous of their hits, some very 'of their time' lyrics on that.

I'd Really Love To See You Tonight is another song they inflict on us at work. Dammit, if they're gonna play all that AC nonsense, why can't they play a little Eddie Cochran, Booker T And The MG's, or Stevie Wonder?

Back in the day, it was always a good idea for a young man to have a copy of America's greatest hits LP in their collection in the dorm room (or James Taylor, Seals & Crofts, Dan Fogelberg...). For you know, entertaining female guests.

Ironically, though, listening to that kind of music had the exact opposite effect. Or at least that's what Denis Leary suggested once. He said that if parents could sue heavy metal bands for causing their kids to commit suicide, he should be able to sue James Taylor for turning him into a pussy. "Your Honor, between this guy and Dan Fogelberg, I couldn't get laid for seven years!!!!!".

[JJ88]

I can listen to that 70s soft-rock/Adult Contemporary because it's mostly acoustic in nature so still sounds OK- the 'mellowness' itself is the most dated thing there, if you get what I mean. But by the 80s/90s the synths and programmed drums started coming into the picture- it tried to sound trendy and the results are just awful.

[BobM]

Saw them last summer at a free concert in the town park. one could still sing, the other struggled, but the sing-along crowd made up for it.

[arturs]

Ironically, though, listening to that kind of music had the exact opposite effect. Or at least that's what Denis Leary suggested once. He said that if parents could sue heavy metal bands for causing their kids to commit suicide, he should be able to sue James Taylor for turning him into a pussy. "Your Honor, between this guy and Dan Fogelberg, I couldn't get laid for seven years!!!!!".

I think the important distinction here is that you are *only* supposed to listen to the America/James Taylor/Dan Fogelberg LPs when the female guest is physically present. Any guy who listens to that stuff on his own, and even worse, actually starts to believe the sentiments expressed as representing some sort of reality... Well then I'm sure Mr. Leary's fate is all but certain.

[GuitarGeek]

I think the important distinction here is that you are *only* supposed to listen to the America/James Taylor/Dan Fogelberg LPs when the female guest is physically present. Any guy who listens to that stuff on his own, and even worse, actually starts to believe the sentiments expressed as representing some sort of reality... Well then I'm sure Mr. Leary's fate is all but certain.

Maybe so. You certainly don't want Fogelberg and Taylor to be the only music you listen to, regardless of one's gender.

But as far as putting on the right music when a woman is over, I always liked the line about Stevie Wonder on one of those I Love The 70's shows on VH-1. I forget who it was who said it, but he said that if you have a rainy night, a fireplace, some cognac, and you put Stevie Wonder on the stereo, if you still can't "close the deal", give it up.

[3LockBox]

I love the first three or four albums, then after that, not so much. The song Hat Trick from the album of the same name is a great stab at a Beatlesque prog/pop suite. Yeah, they weren't going to write any great protest songs but they were a hook factory on those first three albums. IMO, that History album, while fully representative of their sound, is bereft of their better songs that rarely, if ever, get airplay. If you really liked the radio stuff then you owe it to yourself to listen to at least the first two albums.

[Halmyre]

But when I hear those words, sung, they really make me feel like I'm in that damn desert with the horse. Very successful imagery! Probably the best that band ever came up with, though Ventura Highway comes close.

That's my view on it as well. It conjures up the opening scenes of "Paris, Texas", with Harry Dean Stanton walking out of the desert.

[saucyjackstl]

Never cared much for them but their hits are nice and pleasant. I always thought We Can Do Magic was CSN or some other configuration because one of the backup voices sounds like Graham Nash to my ears.

They often get compared to CSN, but if you listen to the Holiday CD it is amazing how much they wanted to sound like the Beatles.

[Joey JoJo]

To me the first two albums are a perfect 10 ("America" and "Homecoming"). A lot of amazing "non hits" are on those two (like Moon Song). "Hat Trick" I would call a 7 and the next 4 I would rate a 6. That's all I have.

[saucyjackstl]

To me the first two albums are a perfect 10 ("America" and "Homecoming"). A lot of amazing "non hits" are on those two (like Moon Song). "Hat Trick" I would call a 7 and the next 4 I would rate a 6. That's all I have.

I find Hat Trick the least pleasing, but the next 2 George Martin produced CDs are definitely as good as the first 2.

[Trane]

For decades, all I knew was HWNN and I went mad looking on which Neil Young album it was.

But although I knew of the band's existence, I'd not heard anything more... or else I simply didn't make the equation A = B

Have to say until recently Horse With No Name was the only song of theirs I was aware of (and I always liked it). But for some reason Sirius XM has played a lot of their other songs recently and it's ll sounded good. Not sure if they are other hits or what.

They had at least a dozen top 40 hits back in the early 70's.

I tried a few times their albums and it simply does nothing to me, except for Horse With No Name, which was the only obvious track I k,ew

Any Greatest Hits collection would probably suffice. I still get overt gossebumps from listening to "Ventura Highway" while sipping GTs in summertime. At their best, America were great at generating feelgood auras.

Goosebumps over America?? TBH, Ventura sounds too much like HWNN to me..

Just like for The Eagles' Hotel California song, I guess the rest of America is wasted on me

[Yodelgoat]

They play guitar, but the leads are atrocious - at the end of Sandman, they jam out to a guitar solo that sounds like it was played by someone who has never played a lead before. I like many of their songs, but they arent necessarily the hits, though I do like Sister Goldenhair any time it is playing.

[pb2015]

To me the first two albums are a perfect 10 ("America" and "Homecoming"). A lot of amazing "non hits" are on those two (like Moon Song). "Hat Trick" I would call a 7 and the next 4 I would rate a 6. That's all I have.

I've checked out the first few duo albums (Silent Letter and Alibi) on streaming sites. If you like mellow West Coast pop they're good, perhaps better than the last few albums with Dan Peek.